What Is a Covenant?
At the heart of this covenant is God’s promise of redemption. God has not only promised to redeem all who put their trust in Christ, but has sealed and confirmed that promise with a most holy vow. We serve and worship a God who has pledged Himself to our full redemption.
The basic structure of the relationship God has established with His people is the covenant. A covenant is usually thought of as a contract. While there surely are some similarities between covenants and contracts, there are also important differences. Both are binding agreements. Contracts are made from somewhat equal bargaining positions, and both parties are free not to sign the contract. A covenant is likewise an agreement. However, covenants in the Bible are not usually between equals. Rather, they follow a pattern common to the ancient Near East suzerain-vassal treaties. Suzerain-vassal treaties (as seen among the Hittite kings) were made between a conquering king and the conquered. There was no negotiation between the parties.
The first element of these covenants is the preamble, which lists the respective parties. Exodus 20:2 begins with “I am the Lord your God.” God is the suzerain; the people of Israel are the vassals. The second element is the historical prologue. This section lists what the suzerain (or Lord) has done to deserve loyalty, such as bringing the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt. In theological terms, this is the section of grace. In the next section, the Lord lists what He will require of those He rules. In Exodus 20, these are the Ten Commandments. Each of the commandments were considered morally binding on the entire covenant community.
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Can I Lose My Salvation? (The Doctrine of Perseverance)
It’s Christ’s Word that warns, guides, teaches, and encourages us as we persevere in faith. We may think of Peter, who, after having fallen away for a time, was restored to Christ on the strength of His truth spoken to him (John 21:15–17). If we wish to endure, it’s imperative we become children of the Word. And so, we look to Christ. We listen to His Word. And finally, we situate ourselves among His people.
Few things burden the Christian more than when a person who once professed Christ wanders from the Gospel. If you take inventory of your own experience, you may come up with a list of names of those who once mentored you in the faith, led your church in worship on Sundays, or even taught the Bible to you yet ultimately (it seems) left the faith. Tragically, the world is filled with people who once apparently walked the path of obedience but didn’t continue on it.
This phenomenon isn’t new. The author of Hebrews warned those to whom he wrote against matters like drifting, rebellion, and disobedience (Heb. 2:1; 3:16). He even at times presented these warnings in conditional terms: “We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end” (Heb. 3:14).
When it comes to the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, we must recognize that these warnings in Hebrews are real warnings, directed toward Christians. There’s no sense in which they are to be ignored on the basis of self-proclaimed security. Instead, as Sinclair Ferguson notes, “the New Testament warns us by precept and example that some professing Christians may not persevere in their profession of Christ to the end of their lives.”1
We must be careful that we don’t grow careless or prideful when it comes to persevering in the faith. In fact, the doctrine should produce in us a careful urgency to heed the biblical warnings concerning apostasy. When we come to the Scriptures, we discover that the perseverance of God’s people in their salvation is a truth that is biblical, practical, and Christ-centered.
A Biblical Doctrine
What do we mean when we talk about the doctrine of perseverance? Louis Berkhof gives a helpful definition, describing it as “that continuous operation of the Holy Spirit in the believer, by which the work of divine grace that is begun in the heart, is continued and brought to completion.”2 Strictly speaking, perseverance has more to do with God’s work than with our own. It’s because God perseveres in His love for us that we’re able to continue in our love for Him. A more apt name for this doctrine, in fact, might be the preservation of the saints. God preserves, keeps, and guards His people.
With the definition in mind, we can locate the doctrine all throughout Scripture. Indeed, the Bible emphasizes the absolute certainty of the believer’s preservation. The opening verses of 1 Peter are among the clearest on the matter:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3–5)
Three truths concerning God’s preservation of the saints arise from this passage.
First, God “has caused us to be born again” (v. 3).
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Act Like Men
Does Paul’s exhortation in 1 Corinthians 16:13 tell us anything about the nature of manhood and masculinity? Two cautions and then two points. The first caution is that we should not load too much theology onto one ordinary, non-technical Greek word. Paul did not use andrizomai to establish a blueprint for biblical manhood or to indicate his “high biblical view of the male gender.” Paul wanted the church to stand strong, be brave, and to push back against bad ideas and bad behavior. The second caution is that we should not think that courage is only a virtue to be associated with masculinity.
Editor’s note: The following essay appears in the Fall 2023 issue of Eikon.
In his final instructions of his first epistle to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul issues a series of five exhortations: “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Cor. 16:13–14). The purpose of this article is to examine the third exhortation — “act like men” — and explore whether that command tells us anything about manhood and masculinity.
Understanding Andrizomai
The phrase “act like men” (ESV) translates a single Greek word: andrizesthe, from the word andrizomai. Several English translations render the andrizomai as “be courageous” (CSB, NAB, NIV, NLT, NRSV, RSV) or “be brave” (GNT, NKJV), choosing not to bring out the sense of anēr (Greek: “man”) on which the word is built. By contrast, the ESV and NASB translate andrizomai as “act like men,” while other English translations have “act like a man” (HCSB), “do manfully” (Douay-Rheims), or, most famously, “quit you like men” (Geneva Bible, KJV).
Everyone agrees that Paul uses andrizomai to tell the Corinthians to be brave and courageous. The question is whether the word also implies something about what it means to be a man. Curiously, the second edition of BDAG (the standard Greek lexicon of the New Testament) defines andrizomai as: “conduct oneself in a manly or courageous way” while the third edition defines the word as: “conduct oneself in a courageous way.” Since virtually all the same supporting examples are used in both editions, it seems the editors — perhaps due to changing cultural perceptions — simply chose to eliminate any connection to manliness.
In recent years, suggesting that there is a “manly” aspect to andrizomai has become more suspect. Roy Ciampa and Brian Rosner, for example, warn that “some scholars have taken the etymology of the word as evidence for a high biblical view of the male gender.”[1] The issue, however, is not whether andrizomai suggests “a high biblical view of the male gender” — a view I have not seen any scholar articulate — but whether the word says anything about the possible virtues of masculinity. Even the egalitarian Gordon Fee maintained that andrizomai “means to ‘play the role of a man,’ an idea that is frequent in antiquity as a call to courage in the face of danger.”[2] Surely, Fee is correct. The word Paul chose to use in 1 Corinthians 16:13 was a familiar word (though used only here in the New Testament) that borrowed on ancient notions of manly courage and bravery.
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The Beginning of Things Tells You Stuff: Determining Genre
The Bible is an ancient book, and God speaks through it “in many ways” (Hebrews 1:1). As a result, it’s not always easy to determine genre…A good study bible or special introduction or commentary can go a long way to helping you bridge the gap, but the best way forward is to immerse yourself in the “many times and many ways” that God has spoken to us.
In the previous two posts of this series argued that one of the reasons we have trouble understanding the Bible is because we do not read it in the ordinary way that books are to be read.1 We assume that because the Bible is the Word of God (which it most definitely is), and because it is therefore inspired and inerrant, that it must consequently “break the rules” of ordinary human communication. I argued, by contrast, that the miracle of the Bible is that it speaks to us about extra-ordinary things (and with extra-ordinary accuracy) in a nevertheless ordinary way. We concluded, then, that one should read any biblical book, be it a letter or a narrative or a history or a compendium of wisdom or a doctrinal treatise, in the same way that you would read any other book of that type. Read any biblical discourse as if it were a particularly exemplary instance of other similar kinds of discourse, even though the ultimate author of this discourse is the One True God.
Which brings us to the present topic, because obviously the next question that arises is “what kind of discourse am I actually reading?” Let’s say you’re reading the “epistle” to the Hebrews and, following the advice above, you want to read it in the ordinary way similar discourses are read. Well, what is an epistle and how are epistles normally read? Do epistles have the same function 2000 years ago that they do today? And is Hebrews even an epistle?2 The answers to those kinds of questions are very important to our present thesis; one can’t read Hebrews (or any other book) in an “ordinary” way if one doesn’t really know the kind of thing that Hebrews is.
Which is why we have to talk about genre.
What is Genre?
What is genre? How might we define the term? One linguist describes it as “discourse type.”3 That is to say, genre is a description of the kind of “communicative event” that we are currently trying to interpret. Let’s say someone is speaking to you. What are they trying to tell you? Are they telling you a story? Are they giving you instructions? Are they asking you to do something? Maybe they are stating an opinion. Perhaps they are relating something that happened to them today so that you might offer them sympathy or council. Each of these represents a different type of discourse and determining the type of discourse that your currently hearing will, in turn, determine how you interpret it and react to it.
Scientists do the same with animals. Both cats and dogs have four legs—in that respect they are similar—but they differ in so far as dogs are awesome and cats are not, and that dissimilarity means they are classified differently. Similarity and dissimilarity is the key to identifying “type,” and genre is “discourse type.” Genre is classification; you are looking at a discourse and describing how it is similar to some discourses and dissimilar to others.
You have likely heard it said that interpretation requires context. Genre is “literary context.” Genre defines how a certain literary event fits within culturally adjacent literary events. To ask about a work’s “genre” is to ask “how is this work similar to other works, and how does that allow me to better interpret what it is trying to accomplish?” Furthermore, determining discourse type, or literary context, is key to interpreting what you are reading. Imagine you get it wrong. Imagine, for example, that you confuse fiction with non-fiction, or satire with genuine news, or the political stump speech with actual policy, or South Park with a child’s cartoon show. You’re likely in for some interpretive troubles. If you want to interpret any of these things correctly, you need to know how the genre works.
How Do I Determine Genre?
If all this sounds a bit too theoretical, here’s the good news: for the most part you identify the genre of a book intuitively and without issue. Most of us can’t help but be immersed in our surrounding culture, and as such we are constantly exposed to diverse types of “literary events,” each of which represent a different subset of literary genres. We thus learn about genre the same way we learn our native language: through constant exposure in natural settings. That’s why you don’t need to be told about the “rules” operative in fiction, or newspaper articles, or the op-ed, or sci-fi, or the latest rom-com.
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